Kentucky Firsts

 When we first moved to Kentucky, it was such a shock to our systems.  Everything was new, different.  Different doesn’t mean bad.  It just means different.  And I lament that you can only experience a “first” one time.  Because of course, the next time you experience that thing, now you’ve seen it before.  When we would drive down these back roads, and have to get WAY OFF the pavement for some ginormous farm machine driving directly at you, which was singularly much bigger than the road itself, it was clear to us that we were indeed somewhere altogether different.  You find yourself questioning what you once knew.  Looking with new eyes.  Recalibrating things that you thought were normal.

When we moved here, GPS wasn’t even what it is now.  GPS was spotty still.  You had to pay much closer attention to where you were at, in case you had to navigate “blind” when GPS just spun in a circle recalibrating your current location.  So when we got on the parkway to head to town one morning, and noticed this sign near the on-ramp we thought, “Are we reading that right?”  The highway sign was a list of prohibited items: “Prohibited: Pedestrians, bicycles, motor scooters, metal treads, farm implements, animals on foot.”

Now you might be thinking to yourself, “who decides on the language for road signs?”  I have often wondered that.  Is it based on need?  Is it based on the number of characters you can fit on a sign?  Are they just CYA in the event of a problem so that someone can point to the sign?  This particular sign cracked us up.  My husband and I turned to each other in the silent moment after it was obvious we had both just read the sign.  The looks on our faces was a cross between, “am I just not getting it” and “is this a joke.”  Animals on foot….exactly what breed of literary animals lives here in the great state of Kentucky?  I mean, they can read signs and everything!  You betta watch out !